Umbrella Here

This is kind of ridiculous/awesome. You attach a light to your umbrella to signal to other Umbrella Here-familiar users that you're willing to share the cover. There's even a mobile app to track other generous, dry people. There are so many challenges with this idea but it would be neat if it caught on. :)

I thought the ambient information state was more interesting than "this umbrella available for use". Scroll down to the WEATHER GADGET section to see the information display connected to local weather. "Glanceable" is the new "Flick" pattern ;D I would buy it for that but then again I coveted the old Ambient Orb stock ticker for a long time now too. The problem can easily be solved by social norms, i.e. all cheap black umbrellas in this box by the door are take one / leave one ala the penny jar at the coffee shop but this is still cool IMHO

This is sort of ancient history at this point, but Ambient Devices used to make an umbrella that would forecast the weather by glowing. So cool. http://www.cnet.com/news/ambient... It would be interesting to see something like this expand to cover some more cool use cases.